The Biden administration has failed to persuade America its social justice agenda has made the country better. Not to worry, the US State Department has other nations in its sights for sowing seeds of division. Throughout the US, citizens have taken great exception to the full court press the radical LGBTQI+ advocates have attempted to foist on the American public.
The social justice warriors have couched their message in benign, often appealing terms like "inclusion," "diversity," and "equity." The US State Department has been particularly energetic in its propagandizing the social justice message. Liberty Nation described this campaign as divisive and deceptive in its report, "Diversity – A Smoke Screen for Race and Behavior Preference." No group has been more strident and aggressive than the LGBTQI+ marketers in the State Department in pushing the latest progressive worldview
State Department View of Human Rights
(Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Proselytizing for other countries to be held accountable to American behavioral preferences has become an institutionalized practice at Foggy Bottom. The US State Department established the office of the Special Envoy to Advance Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Persons Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. This office is funded by the American taxpayer but, thankfully, not by the number of words in the job title. The position is currently held by Ms. Jessica Stern, whose duties include leading efforts "to protect LGBTQI+ persons globally from violence and discrimination." On the surface, that may seem admirable. However, on closer examination, what is being promoted is that human rights and behavioral rights are equivalent. In many cultures, this notion could not be farther from the truth.
To support the US perspective on human behaviors that make up less than 10% of the global population, Special Envoy Sterns traveled to Brazil to deliver an address to the first National March for Trans Day of Visibility. "On January 29, SE [Special Envoy] Stern will give remarks at the government's launch of a report on statistics of violence against transgender and nonbinary persons around the world. While in Brazil, SE Stern will also meet with activists, Brazilian government ministries, and parliamentarians," a State Department press release announced. The impression one gets from reading about the remit of SE Stern is that people who identify as transgender are a significant community within the population.
If that's what you believe, you would be wrong. Worldwide, the focus of SE Stern's concern makes up roughly 3% of the global population and 2% of the United States, according to Statista. Switzerland is the most popular haven for those identifying as "transgender, gender fluid, non-binary, or other ways." Statista leaves it to the reader's imagination as to what "other ways" might mean. Furthermore, the LGBTQI+ narrative falls way short of being adopted in the US. Yet, this group has garnered significantly and disproportionately greater attention from the social justice community than it deserves based on its position worldwide.
The Downside to Foggy Bottom’s Social Agenda
There is a downside to Biden's State Department's prioritizing sexual proclivities as a human rights issue in applying US foreign policy. In many countries America wants to court, the culture and social mores are tied to religious standards of decency that proscribe the behaviors the US State Department wants to protect. Lance Kokonos, in an opinion piece written for Foreign Policy, explained the quandary in which Biden's international security policy team finds itself. Kokonos said:
"In nearly 70 countries, homosexuality is a criminal offense. In Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, parts of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, the death penalty is among the punitive legal options for same-sex conduct…Biden directed 'all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights' of the LGBTQ community and to combat foreign governments' criminalization of it."
When the Biden administration ties its foreign assistance to nations currently friendly to the US but those with strong cultural and societal norms antithetic to what Biden wants them to be, they could turn quickly to embrace closer relationships with China, Iran, or Russia. Imposing American moral standards on other countries whose societal traditions and culture do not comport with what Biden is selling alienates countries with which the US needs to have good relations. A case in point is Nigeria.
A US State Department media note announced, "Today [January 24] in Lagos, Nigeria, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of American Corner Lekki, the newest addition to the United States' global American Spaces Network that comprises more than 600 cultural and information centers in more than 140 countries." This initiative is part of the US outreach effort among African nations.
However, last fall, Nigerian law enforcement agencies arrested 70 individuals accused of participating in same-sex marriages and celebrating gay birthdays. "Nigeria is one of more than 30 of Africa's 54 countries where homosexuality is criminalized in laws that are broadly supported by the public, even though the constitution guarantees freedom from discrimination, and the right to private and family life," Associated Press reported. If the US wants to have an effective foreign policy, successfully wooing important non-aligned foreign nations into imposing American social justice standards by threatening penalties for not complying is a fool's errand. Taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for special envoy junkets to push social justice agendas with modest constituencies that, in the end, prove counterproductive for US national security.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
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